The deputy Inspector General of Government Raphael Baku has faulted parliament for doing little to address the worsening corruption in the country due to what he calls their laziness in discussing the IGG’s reports.
While launching the 26th IGG report on Wednesday, Baku cited past scenarios where parliament had failed to discuss the reports made by his office leading to mass corruption scandals and loss of taxpayers’ money.
The report indicates that the ministry of public service topped the most corrupt ministries list with 25 reported cases in the last six months.
Among the major highlights of the report, which covers the period between July and December 2011, are the gradual increase in the backlog of cases investigated by the IGG due to the increased public reports. A total of 5385 cases were brought before the Inspectorate, 4120 of these being backlog cases carried from the previous period.
Out of the 1,254 new complaints received or initiated by the Inspectorate, 898 were investigated and completed while 138 complaints were processed and later referred to other institutions.
Mismanagement of funds took the highest number of cases reported at 17.9% closely followed by abuse of public offices at 14.1%. From these, 64 public servants were arrested for various corruption-related offences and only 29 cases were concluded in court resulting into 20 convictions.
The report also indicates that the office of the IGG managed to save 5.6 billion shillings worth of taxpayers’ money as a result of their increased investigations. Out of this, 4.2 billion was from the money rewarded to private hotels for the 2007 CHOGM preparations.
The investigation process, according to Baku, was met by financial challenges that could not enable the investigators to carry out their duties which have prompted the office to demand for better funding.
District administrations had the highest number of reported cases at 17.2% of all corruption cases reported, with Kampala district having 51.8% of the total 836 reported cases.
